L.A. Times Talks Up Biden as ‘Uncle Joe’ Considers Presidential Run

Fresh off his trip to the West Coast, Joe Biden received accolades from the Los Angeles Times‘ Cathleen Decker, who cast the vice president as a stark contrast to the controversy surrounding Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.

Decker wrote: “As many in his party looked on in horror, Donald Trump flung tart criticisms of fellow Republicans, denounced illegal immigration and reviled the abject failure, as he sees it, of everything touched by politicians from both parties.”

And the, she said, “reality” intruded: “It arrived in a quiet interlude toward the beginning of a speech at a manufacturing plant in North Hollywood by Vice President Joe Biden, some of whose friends are holding out hope that he will join the Democratic presidential race.”

That reality was the sense of loss surrounding the recent loss of Biden’s son, Beau, to brain cancer.

Decker went further, arguing that “Authenticity has always been Biden’s forte.” She was not referring to his admitted plagiarism, his tall tales about adventures in Yugoslavia, his debate fibs against Sarah Palin and clownish antics against Paul Ryan.

Perhaps Biden is simply more authentic than his leading rival. As Decker wrote: “Hair plugs and re-mastered teeth aside, he has always exuded, better than most politicians, the feeling that you are getting the real thing, like it or not.”